Argentineans celebrate Francis' first anniversary

A mass at the Buenos Aires City Cathedral, an interview with a community radio station from a local shanty town and an art exhibition in the Museum of Contmeporary Art (MAR) of the City of Mar del Plata were among the comemorative activities taking place to mark Pope Francis’ first year in the Catholic Church.

The main celebration was a mass held today at 8 pm in the Metropolitan Cathedral of Buenos Aires City to be presided over by the pontiff’s successor as BA City cardinal, Mario Poli. "Francis is a good pastor, with a rich, wise and luminous teaching", Poli said during the mass.

Along with apostolic nuncio Monsignor Emil Paul Tscherrig, Poli attended earlier a reunion at the Argentine Catholic University. Theologian Carlos Galli and Secretary General of the Papal Commission to Latin America Guzmán Carriquiry Lecour took part in the meeting as well.

Meanwhile, the radio station Bajo Flores, that broadcasts from the 11-14 shanty town located precisely in the City’s suburb of Flores where the Argentinean Jorge Mario Bergoglio used to live, installed giant screens to project an exclusive interview that now Pope Francis granted to the community radio station at the Santa Marta residency in the Vatican.

Amid other artistic events to mark the papal anniversary, the Film Museum of the neighbourhood of La Boca organized the “Movies and Religion: a year of Pope Francis” series and will premiere the “Francis, the pope of the New World” documentary, which will be exhibited on Sunday 30.

In the MAR Museum of Mar del Plata, people were able to attend the “Francis, an Argentine universal encounter with the values that unite us” exhibition that brings together the pontiff’s main prayers and actions.